2006-01-14

an extraordinary world with different ingredients

One year ago the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan.

I’ve been fascinated by space exploration since I was a kid and to this day I’m amazed at the accomplishments of NASA. Navigating and controlling sophisticated equipment in an extremely hostile environment, at distances we cannot even imagine and without the slightest chance of servicing or fixing any hardware…

The touchdown on the surface of Titan marked the farthest a man-made spacecraft has successfully landed away from Earth.Clear images of the surface of Titan were obtained below an altitude of 40 kilometers (25 miles) -- revealing an extraordinary world that resembled Earth in many respects, especially in meteorology, geomorphology and fluvial activity, but with different ingredients. The images show strong evidence for erosion due to liquid flows, possibly methane.